The key difference between “appreciation” and “appropriation” is intent. Cultural appreciation is an homage to the nation or peoples from which the item or activity is being borrowed. It conveys admiration, respect, and a desire to be part of that cultural..even briefly.

I have had a long history of cultural appreciation, starting with stealing my father’s kimonos that he bought while serving in Japan during the Korean War. Sadly, I had no pictures of those.

When I was in graduate school, I was able to take my dream trip to Egypt. There, I developed a lifelong love of belly dance. Here is a picture during taken one of my few performances.

More recently, I have embraced Indian culture and #Bollywood. I have an entire collection of Indian kurtas and jewelry to go with this new interest.

Dance is not the only thing I have appropriated. A couple of years ago, I crossed off drinking German beer in Germany off the bucket list. As you can plainly see, I appropriated a lot of hefeweizen.

Finally, in a move that is sure to give any social justice warrior an attack of the vapors, I got corn rows during a family trip to Mexico. I felt like Cleopatra in Cancun, clearly appreciating both ancient Egyptian and Mexican cultures at a local cantina.

I am clearly a Cultural Appreciation addict. Now, I have a great excuse for more dance and booze…I will need to collect pictures for next year’s celebration.

Most reasonable and sensible people in other countries who legitimately hold ancestral roots to their values and customs appreciate when foreigners are interested and immersive in what they hold dear.

It seems to me that the only real whiners are the white guilters and other SJWs that are long-removed from their immigrant ancestors. Their outcries are really a form of concealing their own shame for various reasons (sometimes because they have lost touch with their heritage or because they want to apologize for things out of their control)

Heck, yes, they enjoy it. All of ’em hootin’ and hollerin’, half drunk on chianti and cheap beer. Some nights I clear $15-20 in tips. In CASH. Please consider my average customer is over 70 with poor eyesight.

Question to Progressives: How can one be a “citizen of the world” and living “without borders” but avoid cultural appropriation at the same time? Isn’t it one big unified world? If you are also for minority rights, then in that big unified world people are color are the majority.

Some simple minded people may call it cultural appropriation, I call it enjoying life. There is so much to experience out in the real world. I was honored, via my military assignments, to live in many varied parts of the world. The native people always liked if you made an effort to learn something about their ways, food, customs and so on. I have many great memories learning things from people who I could not talk to. It is amazing how you can communicate via pointing and smiling at each other. The smiles nearly always happened.